KARACHI, May 16: “Karachi’s lights will glow brighter than ever before”, Dr Hafeez Sheikh, the former federal Privatisation Minister had declared on December 2 last year at the formal handing over ceremony of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) to a company that is registered at the tax free haven Cayman islands in the Caribbean.
Soon after the privatisation of KESC, Dr Hafeez Sheikh has ceased to be minister as he was among those senators who had to quit on completion of three years period. He is not available now on telephone to explain why darkness grips Karachi.
Power breakdowns in Karachi have never been so frequent and extended as these are now for about last two months. The new management has no excuse to offer for the disturbed power supply as it must have carried out a due-diligence of the utility before offering a bid and then enhancing it to match the highest offer.
With reputed German company Siemens as its operational and management (O&M) partner, the new management must have taken a full view of the generation, transmission and distribution systems. In short, the new management was fully aware of the weaknesses of the system when it took over from a public sector management.
The last annual report of the KESC up to June 2005, when it was under a full military control, the electric generation of the system has come down from 9.72 million MWH to 9.30 million MWH thus increasing its reliance on Wapda to purchase 2.41 million units in 2004-05 as against 1.78 million units in 2003-04.
“KESC own generation has reduced over the previous year due to outage of Korangi Thermal Power Stations 1, 2 and Bin Qasim units 2, 3 and 5 for rehabilitation and restoration work,” informs the 93rd annual report of the KESC for the year 2004-05. Against installed capacity of 1,756 MW the KESC’s actual generation was 1,387 and maximum demand was found to be 2,197 MW.
But the KESC’s military management was also confident to predict last summer “a pleasant summer in the year 2006” because of the KESC’s link up with Hubco, the continuing upgradation of the KESC’s transmission and distribution system at a cost of Rs13 billion and installation of three generators gifted by Dubai government to generate 350 additional megawatts.
The KESC’s link up with Hubco is said to have been completed and transmission stretch is now much more reduced when it was coming via Jamshoro and hence less transmission losses. It must have added at least 1,000 megawatt power supply. Neither the KESC nor the Hubco has informed public how much power is being supplied to Karachi.
Karachi also gets power from private power operators. The KESC is not sharing information with the public on availability of power from each of this private power suppliers and the tariff on which it is being supplied.
What is intriguing is government’s silence on availability of three generators from Dubai. Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Jatoi announced on two occasions and the lady parliamentary secretary informed National Assembly members about this with a pledge that there will be no power breakdowns in Karachi next summer (in 2006).
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders too had raised this issue before President Pervez Musharraf. Where are these generators? The people of Karachi should be given an answer.
Then in the year 2002, the government approved Rs13 billion for improving the transmission and distribution system of the KESC. Out of this only Rs2.5 billion was provided. For the remaining amount the banks were being lined up to give KESC a loan against government guarantee. There is no word on this programme.
The KESC’s generation stations are now too old and worn out because of lack of maintenance. There are six generating units at the Bin Qasim with a capacity of 210 megawatts each. The oldest unit was set up in 1983 followed by second in 1984. Two more units 3 and 4 were established in 1994, the fifth in 1993 and the last and youngest in 1997. As against an installed capacity of 1,260 megawatt, the available capacity is said to be less than 1,000 megawatt.
There is no hope that all these six units will now work at optimum generation capacity at any time.
The condition of four units at Korangi Thermal station with a total installed capacity of 316 megawatts is even worse where each of these four units have virtually outlived technical life span. These units were installed in 1965, 1970 and 1977. The generation at Korangi Town and SITE is even more pathetic.
The KESC’s transmission capacity assessed at end June 2002 was 3,386 megawatts and various 220 KV and 132 KV lines were commissioned as far back as 1970 and 1984. All network management is carried out manually. The distribution system is based on 2,200 sub stations. No wonder, the distribution and transmission losses in Karachi at one time were estimate over 50 per cent.
With all these inherent weaknesses in the KESC’s generation, transmission and distribution system the Karachi Building Control Authority goes on sanctioning one building project after the other. There are many high-rise building projects coming up in the city when it faces acute power shortage. Construction, they say generates employment and hence all patronage to it.
